Magee-Womens Hospital has opened a umbilical cord blood bank for either public clinical use or research. This a great boon for raising awareness of a rich, ethically acceptable source of stem cells. Kudos to Magee and Carol Berger for spearheading this, and if you know people expecting to have a baby at Magee, encourage them to make use of this.
National Geographic has a nice little article on umbilical cord blood stem cells here.
Aside from prayer–which I perhaps should do more often–I have felt great sadness and helplessness when hearing of the plight of Iraqi Christians.
Fortunately, CNEWA has a way for us to help more directly: they has a list of projects to support Christians in threatened parishes and also to help relocate a Baghdad seminary to a more secure location, among others. Check it out, and please give!
Yesterday morning I ran the IKEA Half Marathon. It was very humid, which was less than ideal, but between the light drizzle and the temperature being about 20° cooler than last year, the conditions were pretty good. Things got off to a bad start for me, though, because the organizers banned iPods this year. That really pissed me off. Consequently, I may boycott this and any other race that bans iPods.
Anyhow, I’d hoped to finish under 2 hours, but I’m not disappointed with my 2:03:07 (9:24 pace). I wonder how the use of an iPod would have affected my time. Also, I had to pee at about 4.5 miles, which cost me at least a minute. Damn you, enlarged prostate!.
On September 1, I ran the Gatorade Steelers 5K. I finished in a reasonable 25:27 (8:12 pace). I want to break 25:00, so I guess I’ll have to do it at Run Shadyside.
The race started at least 15 minutes late because we had to listen to umpteen introductions of honored guests (yawn) and wait for late-comers to register. The course was incredibly boring. If I thought looping around a parking lot was exciting I’d watch NASCAR. The biggest disappointment, though was that the mayor beat me with a time of 24:34. He’s running the Great Race, and I will not let him beat me again.
It’s on, Mayor Opie, and you’re going down.